WHAT THE WORLD NEEDS NOW by miss tori cote
Just recently, I have decided that, as a whole, people need to learn to be nicer to each other. That’s sounds so contrived and easy, but it really makes a difference if many people engage in ‘nice’ behaviors. I once dated a boy who I was head over heels for. We didn’t live near each other, so it wasn’t easy to show affection. Being the classy girl I am, I decided to write him letters. These weren’t cute little letters mind you, but heart gushing emotion wrenching letters (so I felt at the time). I spent at least a few days coming up with the right words and using the perfect metaphors. I even made a list once of one hundred things I loved about him.* Any who, at the moment I knew my letters were appreciated, but with time situations and emotions change. I wonder if my letters even exist anymore, let alone are ever glanced at. Not that I want them to be reread like a bedtime story, but it’s nice to know that your thoughts and effort are at least memorable. By now, the boy and the letters are a thing of the past. As I was packing for school the other day, I found one of them. It made me think of the small things that people do for each other, that really mean more than anything. Why don’t friends write each other letters or maybe make some surprise cookies? Maybe we should clean the kitchen for our parents once in a while when we’re home. Perhaps we could just drive our little siblings to go buy that new video game down the street, considering we have a license and it really is just down the street. Over the summer I went down to Martha’s Vineyard to stay with a friend and his family. I had taken the ferry over to the island, and parked my car in a local parking lot. Being the silly irresponsible girl that I am, I left the driver’s seat window down. It just so happened that the weekend was forecast to rain, typical. When I arrived back to my car after my pleasant weekend, I saw that my car window was covered by a trash bag. My immediate thought was that someone had broke into my car and the people working the ferry had covered my window. Joy of all joys. As I went into my car and poked around a bit, I noticed a letter. The letter read: It was raining out and window was open. Put on trash bag. Have nice weekend. - Juan No one had made him do this, this guy just must have felt bad when he saw my window. To be completely honest, I cried. It was such a small gesture, but it was the nicest thing. Most people really would just stare at it and maybe laugh, but this guy actually had a heart. It gave me faith in humanity (sort of). Well, it at least made me hate people a little less. I think that it’s about time that people start being nice to each other. Maybe everyone else in the world is extremely welcoming, but being from New England I’m not exceptionally used to many warm and welcoming gestures. From now on though, I’m going to try and be just a little bit more friendly. Maybe not write a love letter anytime soon, but I can smile at the person walking by me, right? This may be the most cliche and cutesy thing you’ve read, but I figured a reminder wasn’t bad. We all have to be reminded sometimes, and we all have to start somewhere. Baby steps, loves, baby steps. * That’s not easy by the way; you might think you love one hundred things about someone, but to actually write every single thing you love is a kind of challenging. You can only tell someone you are attracted to them mentally and physically in so many forms without sounding a baby bit repetitive.
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photo by daisy chen 3
this issue is brought to you by megan’s needlepoint.
Single of the
Week
The Bird Calls released a great new album a week or so ago called I Can’t Get That Monster Out Of My Mind, and it’s available for free download on his bandcamp! Check out our favorite track, “I’m A Monster.” 4
TICKETS ON SALE NOW IN THE SCHINE BOX OFFICE! 5
the bird calls
an interview by the miscreant
Meet Sam Sodomsky, also known as the Bird Calls, a sophomore at Syracuse University. Having recently played a knockout basement show and released yet another dynamic album, Sam is raising some eyebrows amongst the Syracuse music community. Here he discusses his influences, his songwriting, and his similarities to Soulja Boy. THE MISCREANT: When did you first start playing music? THE BIRD CALLS: I took piano lessons when I was really little. After I started getting into rock music I begged my parents to let me switch to guitar. I didn’t get any good at guitar until I played in an actual band, and I didn’t get any good at writing songs until I left the band and started writing on my own. M: Is there a meaning behind your moniker? Are birds especially meaningful to you? B: The Bird Calls is the name I’ve been recording under since I was 12, and, at the time it was a way for me to work anonymously without much commitment or without really assigning myself to the project. I just wanted to create a new identity for myself. Also, animal names were really popular at the time! I’ve always thought birds were really cool and as I progressed as a writer, it’s come to mean a lot of different things to me. M: How many albums have you put out as the Bird Calls? Are there specific concepts behind each? B: Okay, this is a tough one to answer! I have made 17 official Bird Calls albums -- I just counted and can confirm this to be accurate -- that’s since I started taking the project seriously in mid-2008. There are several “unofficial” completed albums that I made but never released from the vaults, so to speak. My most recent unofficial album was made all in one day a few weeks ago. It’s called “American Broody” and nobody will ever hear it! The general concept for every Bird Calls album, I guess, is just to be better than the last one. For the most part, I am constantly working to better myself and constantly exercising my songwriting ability. And every time someone like Will Oldham or Laura Marling puts out a record, I find myself questioning everything I’ve ever made and just wanting to get better! The only way I think I can do this is by making as much music as possible. Some of my albums definitely have their own specific concepts though. For example, “Desperado” is all about country music: its implications and its restrictions. “Glacier Bay” is an album about revenge and bitterness. “Love Birds” is about romance and devotion. Others have less concrete themes running through them, but I think all of my albums have some sort of unifying connection among the songs. M: Are there any reoccurring themes throughout all your albums? B: Yeah, totally. There are just certain obsessions that I have, or things I just like to write about. Animals, for instance, play a huge part in almost all of my records, in one way or another. I also love writing about transformation, whether it’s a literal transformation like in “I’m A Monster” or a subtler, more metaphorical one, like the melodic and tonal shifts I used a lot on the Glacier Bay album. There are other ideas that I explore a lot and that kind of progress throughout my albums. Some of them are like jokes to me. I sing a lot about living forever and most times when I do that, I add later that nobody really notices. To me that’s just funny. M: You just put out a new record, I Can’t Get That Monster Out Of My Mind. What/who is the monster? One of the tracks suggests you are the monster.
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B: Okay, so the title of this album is taken from a Joan Didion essay that, in turn, took that line from an unspecified horror film. But I read the line and really liked it and it seemed to encompass a lot of what I had been writing about in these songs. Maybe I am the monster, I don’t know! All of the songs on this record deal with persevering and knowing how to move on when you are in troubled times. Most of the songs are really conflict songs – one man verses something else… another person or a natural disaster or his own impending death. So the monster would be whatever you are facing in life that’s currently making you want to give up. And the message is don’t give up! The monster never wins in the end (unless you let it)! M: Why do you choose to release all of your music for free? B: A lot of reasons! Mainly, I am morally opposed to paying for MP3 files. It just seems wrong to me. I only use iTunes when it’s completely necessary, and I purchase most music on CD or vinyl. I also download illegally because it’s a great way to discover music and hear things before I get a chance to buy it. I would love to release my music in physical formats because I love physical formats, but at the rate at which I make music, it just doesn’t seem practical… by the time I’d get the test pressings for my record, I would have already made another set of songs that I liked even more. So for now, it just seems like my music should exist solely as free downloads, at least until I mature a bit or someone else wants to put out one of my records. M: You write your music from seemingly different perspectives, specifically someone much older than nineteen. Why do you do this? B: One of the most common misconceptions about me and my music is the reaction that goes like “Wow, you’ve written a lot of songs, you must have a lot to say!”. I don’t consider myself to be part of the breed of songwriters who writes music when “inspiration strikes” or when he has “something on his mind”. I find most of these songwriters and their songs to be really lame. I mean, sometimes I’ll write a song because I want to communicate something specific to someone, but for the most part, I just write constantly because I think it’s a lot of fun. Because of this, a lot of the songs I write are completely fictional and are narrated by figments of my imagination. I promise these characters are a lot more interesting than me… I think my songs would be really boring if I just wrote about what I know. But just because the songs are fictional doesn’t mean that I don’t mean what I am saying! It’s impossible to escape yourself, especially in songwriting. M: Why is the genre of metal important to you? How has it influenced your songwriting? B: Even though I have absolutely no authority to speak about metal, I will attempt to do so to answer this question. I think the most important thing to say is that I just really love metal. There are Darkthrone records that I predict will be in my listening rotation until the day I die and presumably even after, if possible. There’s this monolithic power to those kinds of records, it’s not like listening to any other kind of music – just sonically, it’s like being on a drug or being in a lucid dream to me. It’s just a huge force and an experience you put yourself through every time you listen. As a songwriter too, I am really inspired by a lot of metal songwriting. If you look at an older band like Iron Maiden (who is still putting out really awesome records, by the way), Iron Maiden writes these really direct almost-pop songs with verses and choruses and stuff but with these intensely dark fascinations and motifs integrated so naturally throughout everything… they can take a song like “Can I Play With Madness,” which doesn’t sound out of place at all on your regular classic rock stations and can pretty much appeal to any pop/rock fan. And then they insert a line like “your soul’s gonna burn in the lake of fire!” I think that’s really awesome. I try to keep my songs accessible and fun but with a constant sense of dread and darkness permeating throughout.
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M: Has hip-hop inspired you at all in your music? This is an excuse for me to ask you whom you fancy as the best rapper of all time. B: Well if you ask me that question you know I am going to talk about Flocka Flame because I think he is the light which all false prophets pretend to be. Flocka exists in this universe of singularity where everything he touches carries his beautiful, unique mark of honesty- at the moment, he is infallible to me. When he raps over Lex Luger beats, it sounds like nothing in the world will ever stop him. More than anything though, I am inspired by the way hip hop artists release their music. If you look at Soulja Boy’s discography, I think he only has three official records you can by in stores. But since the release of his last one, he has to have put out at least, like, twelve mixtapes – most of which are really solid and better than any of his official records. And you don’t have to download all of them to be a Soulja Boy fan, which is also really cool. In a way, I see a lot of parallels between me and a rapper like Soulja. He seems like a dude who just consumes an enormous amount of music and can’t help but be influenced by it all and keep producing more music. If I had the funds and the fanbase and the drive that Soulja has, I could see myself working in a very similar way. I’d even buy a jet. M: Before, you’ve referenced Bruce Springsteen as one of your major influences. What draws you to the Boss? B: Oh man! Where to begin with this one? I heard Bruce Springsteen for the first time when I was five years old and somehow knew at that point that it was the most important thing I’d hear in my whole life. I got all of his records and I digested them and studied them throughout al of my formative years. So with that base of knowledge, as I grew up, I explored a whole lot of musical territory but never stopped coming back to Bruce. He’s my north star and my Elvis and my Beatles and my James Dean all wrapped in one. Last year when that Darkness on the Edge of Town box-set came out I formed a new, really huge bond with that record in particular- watching the documentary that came with it and hearing all the recordings on the outtakes collection The Promise. He was always writing and he took his work so seriously – nothing ever came between him and his art. That was really huge for me. Even his newer records like Devils and Dust are really important to me – every song he writes teaches me a lesson. I could talk literally for hours about him. M: Many folks say there is a new generation of leaders in the music scene in Syracuse. Do you see yourself as a part of this community? Where do you fit? B: I definitely agree with that first part. I think Syracuse is a total goldmine right now for good music… Sarah Aument and her band are writing the best songs I’ve heard all year; Mouth’s Cradle is crafting what is sure to be the biggest pop album since Thriller; this new band Friend Killers is leaving their audiences speechless and teary-eyed every show they do… I do feel a kinship with everyone who’s playing music at Syracuse and I think we all work together to form a totally supportive and inviting community. But as The Bird Calls, I don’t really feel like, or necessarily want to feel like, a part of any larger group. I think I need to maintain a sense of intimacy and privacy with the project for me to be comfortable with it. M: What’s next for the Bird Calls? B: Any day now I think I am going to upload a sort of Bird Calls “greatest hits” collection onto the internet for people who are just kinda discovering my music now or even for people who just haven’t been able to keep up with my releases. I am also done writing my new record “I Am The Resurrection,” which should be recorded by the end of the month!
Download music by the Bird Calls at thebirdcalls.bandcamp.com! 8
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THE STRONG, SILENT TYPE by sir lance st. laurent
Swift, tense, brutal, gorgeous, unexpected: One might use these terms to describe the bursts of violence that punctuate Drive, the American debut of Danish director Nicolas Winding Refn, but they are just as applicable to the film writ large. Drive is a film of stunning, even breathtaking beauty and unspeakable brutality, of exquisite silences and soul-crushing chaos. It’s not just an exceptional film, but a wholly unique one. Unlike other genre throwbacks, Drive isn’t simply interested in replicating the B-movies of the past. Instead, Drive elevates its generic conventions to the form of high art. It is a perfect marriage between the grind house and the art house, a dizzying fever dream of cinematic influences I mentioned that Drive is the American debut of Refn. For some foreign directors, the trip to America means very little. Refn (who picked up a best director award at Cannes for this film) has used his time in the states to make a film that’s not only American, but extremely American. Muscle cars, mobsters, single mothers, goodhearted criminals, these are the bread and butter of American genre filmmaking, just not in the 21st century. Refn’s film is a complete throwback to the car chase films of the 70s and 80s, from its stoic, nameless lead to its synth-laden score. Ryan Gosling plays a nameless figure credited as “Driver”, a stunt driver for the movies by day and a wheelman--a getaway driver for hire--by night. He soon becomes interested in his neighbor Irene (Carey Mulligan), a single mother whose husband is in jail. After her husband is released, the driver becomes involved in a scheme that leads him down a path of death and destruction. It’s a spare story, lean and sleek like one of Driver’s getaway vehicles, but one that Refn mines for its full value. The film is anchored by Gosling’s subdued, stony performance. Gosling previous work is marked by his high emotion, a mode one critic called “method pyrotechnics”, but Gosling wisely dials it back for his role as Driver, rarely saying more than 3 words at a time and almost never speaking above a controlled, hushed tone. He is the man with no name, the strong, silent, morally ambiguous hero. Naturally, Gosling channels actors most famous for these roles, men like Clint Eastwood, Steve McQueen, and Charles Bronson. He allows the complexity of Driver to play out on his face, never saying more than is necessary. He’s backed up by a stellar cast. Carey Mulligan continues her run of fantastic performances as single mother Irene, a women whose silent complexity is on par with Driver’s. Breaking Bad’s Bryan Cranston gives wit and warmth to a character that could have been a bland mentor figure and Mad Men’s Christina Hendricks makes the most of a glorified cameo. The standout, though, is Albert Brooks as a ruthless mob boss. Brooks is a gifted comic actor and director (look him up, kids) whose menacing turn is a revelation in a film full of surprises. The real beauty of Drive, though, is the atmosphere that Refn creates. It’s a film that defies definition. It’s both a moody, existential character piece and a tense action thriller. It’s a European art film disguised as an American genre picture. And despite my effusive praise, it’s a film that I imagine will provoke wildly divergent reactions from audiences. A film this strange is bound to alienate and polarize. That being said, Drive is a film that must be seen in a theatre. Its beautiful cinematography, driving electronic score, and dazzling sound design demand the biggest, most amazing cinema that you can find. Drive may challenge you. It may confuse you or disgust you. It may anger you. It’s not an easy film and not particularly fun in the conventional sense. Drive is a gorgeous, enthralling piece of filmmaking for those who can stomach it. Like its protagonist, Drive is engrossing throughout, silent when it wants to be, and savage when it needs to be.
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WORLD PHILOSOPHIES by andrew mcclain
I’m in my third year of school at the University of Central Arkansas, a public university with about 11,000 students of various backgrounds, including a large population of exchange students and nontraditionals. As I focus in on my major, I’m exposed to less of the general education curriculum, and therefore fewer people outside my major. However, the gen-ed philosophy class I’m taking this semester might make me miss them just a little bit. My “World Philosophies” class meets in a classroom too small for its 27 people, who represent about every imaginable type of person UCA has to offer. A handful of freshman, a few older nontrads, accounting majors, and physical therapy majors. Most of them have already picked a life philosophy and can’t be bothered to talk about someone else’s. Our professor’s name is Nick, and he looks like a forgotten Baldwin brother. He’s short, with long, slicked-back hair, but immensely articulate and personable. Of the 27 people in our class, only about 7 ever discuss anything. Among these are Duck, an ex-Marine I’d place at about 26 years of age, with the soul patch, spiked hair, the tight Hollister t-shirts and the cargo shorts and Birkenstocks. He has a brash, caustic manner of speaking in his Southern accent, and lightheartedly asks poorlyloaded rhetorical questions throughout class. He is a philosophy major and has become universally reviled throughout the classroom by everyone except Tiger, a tiny, short-haired girl who sits next to him and relishes making subversive comments about Christianity to garner reactions from the usually-silent members of the class. This odd couple and their smugness adds a nervous, electric energy to the classroom, and regardless of how I may feel about any given thing they say, (often inane, sometimes astute) I marvel at their ability to create an environment where nearly everyone is ready to jump at their throats. Jessica, a fussy girl who I can promise is not studying philosophy, seems to speak for the majority of the class and often demands more structure from Nick, who teaches in a loose, discussion-based lecture format that is probably better-suited for upper-level philosophy courses. “Hold on,” she has learned to say, in a stern manner, while taking notes, “ what does ‘isomorphic’ mean? Can you spell it, please? Thank you.” She’s also incredibly quick to point out any small structural flaw in anything Duck says. She really, really hates him. My favorite is Josh, a big, slow-speaking, unassuming guy who is very engaged by the subject matter, but provides comic relief with his frequent self-deprecating admissions of confusion. Sometimes, the look on his face after absorbing a particularly weighty concept is so sincerely stunned. He’s particularly concerned with the possibility that dolphins have souls. We’re discussing Plato. Nick explains the idea of the Platonic realm, where everything exists in its perfect form. We’re using a chair as a basic example of something that exists perfectly in Plato’s realm of forms and ideas, but imperfectly in the world. Josh asks about the process of invention. “So, like, when someone says ‘Hey, I need something to sit in - I’ll invent a chair’ - that’s when the perfect chair appears in Plato’s realm?” Nick says that this realm of forms is actually metaphysically independent, and existed before anyone invented anything. Josh starts shaking his head as if he just witnessed a trauma that he can’t quite process. “No. Nuh-uh. Nuh-uh...” “Now we’re getting into some deep shit,” Duck chuckles. Nick laughs, admitting that this is true, and adding “There are many ways to parse this.” Jessica looks up from her notebook and says, exasperated “I JUST WANT ONE.” We continue talking about Plato’s “Republic” and the ideas he proposed there for society, including the “Gattaca”-style group childrearing process, in which children are selected out of a pool for their particular skills. As we discuss the “pool of talent,” Duck slips up and uses the word “pond” for some reason or another. Josh calls him on it, not in Jessica’s vindictive manner, but instead his own inquisitive one. “A pond? What?” “Pond, pool, lake, whatever,” Duck explains, nicely. “Oh...” Josh says. “We’re all dolphins, basically,” Duck says, in summation. Josh, in character, nods and his face lights up in false, comedic understanding, and says “Ohh, that’s all you had to say.”
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batting feathers poetry by angela hu
he asked, if i should, i could i would bat my eyelashes for him? i said darling if i could, i should i would bat these feathers for you. but– these lashes only go so high and i pursed my lips into a smirk before he realized i wasn’t joking about the mininess of the feathers on my eyes. i batted and batted hoping he would notice a difference. he stared into my black saucers and i saw his gaze flicker up and down: from my forehead caked with oil to my eyes batting with feathers and my lips flaking with the red presence of something that had been there before until he lunged forward and took it away.
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photo by lizzy scafuto 13
Submit to Verbal Seduction! Our friends at Verbal Seduction are looking for your poetry prose, nonfiction, art and photography for an upcoming issue of Syracuse University’s own literary magazine. Email your works by October 14 to: verbal.seduction@yahoo.com
“The 219 Takeover” was an outdoor concert held at the 219 South West St. facilities on Saturday, September 17. The headlining acts were Widowspeak and Vivian Girls. For more info on upcoming events, check out 219swest.com. 14
ON THE EVER-WORSENING STATE OF ROMANTIC COMEDIES by sam chertok
I’m not always an angry person, but when I am, I get real angry (@Dos Equis). Most of the time I can hide it, but on occasion, I whistle and boil over. The things about which I am passionate, when done poorly, conjure pillow-punching rage. I am an admitted lover of rom-coms (Hugh Grant 4 lyfe!) so when a bad one comes out, I rant. Here goes: Romantic comedies are in the toilet nowadays. What made rom-coms so good in the 90s (clichés) have now been so overcooked that I cringe every time a macho man dances or acts like a homosexual [call it the Terry Crews Effect]. How can such moves still elicit laughs? For example: “Larry Crowne” is the worst movie that I have ever paid to see. No movie or production—not even Glee—so openly and aggressively addresses societal issues while at the same time so actively glossing over and simplifying a series of complex social considerations. “Crowne”, marketed as a rom-com for the middle-aged among us in the summer of such youngin’ drudgery as “Friends with Benefits” and “No Strings Attached” [are they not the same movie?], fails so miserably that I wished not only for my two hours back but also for that mind eraser apparatus from “Men in Black” so I could forget that those two hours had ever existed. That’s right: I’d rather have an episode of amnesia (for which I would be required to undergo a significant amount of tests at the doctor’s) than sit through a crappy movie. I can’t suck it up. Such is my life and those of other neurotic Jews. To start, a successful rom-com must put two or more bonafide stars on display [It’s in the Ten Tenants for successful rom-com production, along with: 2) one star must be employed in the music industry (see “High Fidelity”) 3) black guy best friend repeatedly makes cracks at white guy best friend’s expense regarding his lack of dancing and jumping acumen (“Hitch”) 4) sexual frustration for men and sexual freedom for women (any) 5) Jews making jokes about Jewry (“There’s Something About Mary”, “Knocked Up”) 6) Hugh Grant or Richard Gere (“About a Boy”, “Pretty Woman”) 7) sports-related sexual metaphors (“Jerry McGuire”) 8) lead actress is physically WAY out of lead actor’s league (“Wall-E”, “Wedding Crashers”) 9) Scarlett Johansson (“Lost in Translation”) 10) Brits (“Forgetting Sarah Marshall”, “Love Actually”)] Here, we have Tom Hanks, a man of valor who has undoubtedly seen better days, and Julia Roberts, whom I hardly care for. [Seriously, what is her deal? Is she hot or is she too old to even have that talk? Is she skinny or wide-hipped? In that sense she is akin to Sarah Jessica Parker: at least somewhat unattractive, but they continue to land roles for being attractive.] In short, these two don’t fit. Firstly, Tom Hanks looks to have nutritional facts reading high in sodium and ingredients including at least 15% plastic-in-the-face. [Don’t get me wrong; I love Tom Hanks. How could you not? “Big” was the shit, as was “Saving Private Ryan”. The man is as versatile as they come. But in all honesty, he pretty much plays the same character; he’s always the down-on-his-luck normal guy who discovers a previously untapped inner strength, which he uses to overcome atypical adversity.] That character plays well in most movies. ‘Cept for in “Crowne”: Larry is so average, so breathtakingly unexciting, that I don’t care if he gets the girl. He’s just another dude who got lucky. I see that enough in real life. Julia Roberts plays a not-hottie pretentious English major pseudo-professor who can’t wait to leave her porn-addicted motherfucker of a husband (an embarrassingly misused Bryan Cranston) in order to sit in a hammock all day and sip sangria. Who the fuck cares? Larry is a manager at U-Mart who gets fired because he doesn’t have a college education. [Plot hole: why would anyone fire a long-tenured employee who is happy and productive and poses no threat to anything?] So Larry goes back to school at the local community college and begins a romance with his public speaking class professor. Both back stories upset me. Without the two stars with chemistry, “Larry Crowne” would have been bad. But because it follows a whopping three Tenants, it qualifies for the Poop Division [if rom-coms came together in a professional movie-making league, “Larry Crowne” would be the 2011 Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim: surrounding overpaid talent with hilariously overpaid role players]. I’m a man of details, and with “Crowne”...well, bullet points are most effective here: - LOL! This average white dude lives next to a fat, cheap, and quirky black guy who has a wife farther out of his league than I am from playing in the NFL! And said black dude wears Fedoras and smokes cigars. - Larry joins a biker gang led by a cute and quirky little afro-chick who dates the hysterically metrosexual (and not hysterically amusing) Wilmer Valderrama. - Why is there a biker gang of scooter riders at a community college? No such thing exists. - Why would the biker gang allow Larry entry to their clique? In real life, a Tom Hanks lookalike going to college for the first time at 40+ is regarded as creepy, as unfortunate as that is. - In an attempt to hide her hangover, Roberts wears her Dior shades inside (!!!) “Larry Crowne”: taking clichés to a whole new level [and that’s saying something. Clichés and rom-coms have been dating for a years]. Indeed, their story is entirely implausible while still following the basic rom-com structure: boy meets girl, girl doesn’t like boy at first, but by the end, she does. This movie should have been about their ‘romance’, but it ended up being a thinly veiled and meek social commentary on...literally nothing. But what makes Crowne legitimately offensive is its approach to social concerns. The producers wanted to attract average Joe to the theater by glorifying the unemployed average Joe. There is a critical montage of Larry looking for a job until, after getting turned down at every U-Mart imitator in town, he decides to pursue a degree. Money becomes a problem, but only sorta kinda; soon, Larry quickly abandons his job search to become a full-time student. That’s fine; in fact, good for him. But then the money does become an issue and Larry can’t make his mortgage payments and is forced to move out. My problem is this: rather than immediately change his lifestyle post-firing, Larry maintains his expenses while shopping for pseudo-hipster clothes and not earning a cent of income. In truth, Larry was always living beyond his means; how the hell did he get the money for the down payment on his suburban home in the first place? Why was he so unprepared for getting laid off? Was there no contingency plan? So here’s the lesson, America: if you get fired, it’s cool. Just spend more than you ever have. Get rid of those ratter Old Navy polos! You look like shit in those. You gotta look hip – so consume! Also, every minority is a caricature, and that’s fucked up.
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WANT MORE MISCREANT? Thank you all for reading issue 10 of the Miscreant; and thank you, as always, to those who submitted. With each issue, I feel the zine growing. The first print issue is out and about, and I hope you all are enjoying it. Please email the Miscreant Gmail with requests for copies. And be on the look out for more news, as there are some exciting developments on the horizon! Now, my miscreants, send your concert photos, your odes to the Human League, your top 10 lists, etc to: themiscreantt@gmail.com. Love, the miscreant